After what Stanton said I’m gonna quote myself from ‘last western you watched’ and move my thoughts here - cheers … (modify) … 'scept I’ve just realised I can’t quote from one thread to another - sorry is there a way of doing this without retyping it all?
[quote=“Reverend Danite, post:1, topic:763”]'scept I’ve just realised I can’t quote from one thread to another - sorry is there a way of doing this without retyping it all?[/quote]copy/paste?
This reply from me was in response to an original review of Yankee by Cris Casey in ‘last western you watched thread’ - which Stanton thought would be better in a discussion thread of its own … so after a bit of messing about I’ve got it a home here. Sorry for making a mess of your forum Sebastian.
[quote=“Reverend Danite, post:1494, topic:141”]I agree with most of this - I was extremely excited to get my copy from Germany, but overall I was disappointed after watching it. Maybe I expected too much.
Without giving away too many spoilers, I’ll explain why. The story never developed the best visual and thought-provoking aspects contained within it. There seemed to be a circular motif linked to death running thru … the floor of the Great Concho’s and Rosita; the ring of fire and the scorpion/our hero. There was sun flare and a gold coin and Concho’s neck jewellery at various times to link to shootings and I have to agree about the fantastic camera work at times. The film certainly looked good. But there were silly mistakes - the cutting between fuse-powder around the wheel and our hero had varying different positions, and I counted at least 9 shots (from our hero) before he’s told that he only has one left???. (Maybe I need to watch that bit again). That ‘game-playing’ ending made little sense as well. BUT!.. somehow (because it is, after all, an ideosyncratic s.w.) I still really enjoyed it thru the disappointment - it just seemed to promise more.Example - There’s a character named Philosopher (Scherpschutter - one for you) but he’s only credited with one piece of esoteric nonsense …and I wanted more).
There’s a nod to Leone and FAFDM with the chair trick and - is it possible that Leone got his ‘hanging’ idea for OUATITW from this film - there’s even a bell ringing at the time?
Now - I watched this film last night, but it’s not really the last film I watched but it was responsible for me watching ‘One after Another’ this morning - for some reason ‘Yankee’ put me in mind of it. There is a bit in Y where it is said that he will get them one after another or one by one … or summat like that. Anyway I found this (despite Weisser’s slammin’ of it) the more rewarding film, and after a cup of coffee I’m gonna say why. [/quote]
[quote=“Reverend Danite, post:1495, topic:141”]POSSIBLE SPOILERS. Firstly - I gotta say altho’ they’re not altogether similar, there are points of contact that show why I prefer ‘One …’ over the other. Both of these film’s have pretty strange ‘strangers’ … which is good, and Phillippe Leroy plays a pretty weird fish as Yankee and probably does a better job than Richard Harrison as ‘The Milky-Bar Kid with gritted teeth’. But the ‘One …’ story is better on all other counts. Better story - more twists and turns, double-crosses on all sides. Better women - Pamela Tudor does a great main squeeze but the Mexican gals have greater characterisation and facets than Mirella Martin has in Yankee. And that puts me in mind of the ‘women in the bath’ scene that both films have!!! Both pretty damn good, but ‘One …’ wins on a bit of nudity (see appropriate ‘Nudity…’ thread, to find out how much, which needs to be revived on the back of this). Massacres - both have them, but Yankee’s is too predictable and down to the ‘dirty mexicans’, the other’s is painted in blood but also in the spaghetti western ‘shades of grey’ we sort of expect, and in, and despite this, it still remains much more (genuinely) shocking. When both ‘strangers’ do go after their quarry ‘one by one’ Yankee disappoints by comparison. Both ‘strangers’ are caught and tortured (as we’d expect) and in this, Yankee had the best moves and ideas but seriously copped out. Just too easy!
Both films have an undertaker and altho’ Yankee goes for a combined undertaker/barber and plays it well - ‘One …’ has the cliched old nutter that we’ve come to love and with this it does’t disappoint. When we do get the cliches (and ‘One…’ has more - but they are well done) they make up for the possible lack of innovation - that Yankee has more of. So it’s back to that old chestnut again ( we had a bit of a conversation along these lines, Scherpschutter) - Well done cliches in a well crafted twisting storyline beat Innovation poorly executed. At least, in my humble opinion, I reckon it to be the case.
Any other views on these films?[/quote]
Thanks Bill - I’m a bit of a techno-moron…
POSSIBLE SPOILERS - Well, I did watch YANKEE again - last night. A couple more observations …
I was wrong about the 9 shots from a gun and ‘only one shot left’. Turns out there were a couple of pistoleros firing at the time. Watching it the second time was pretty good - I got more out of it, but I still stick by what I said about it having more potential than it delivers. This time around I could concentrate more on the visuals cos I didn’t have to follow all the subs … and this brought home to me the ‘obvious’ problem with this very visual film. There’s just too much talking! The film says nothing deep, despite the ‘Philisopher’ character - but everything is over-explained anyway. Whereas ‘No-Name’ says little verbally, and we move thru the genre to ‘Silence’ … Mr.Brass has everybody state the bleedin’ obvious so we don’t miss a thing. Ironically (see - I do understand the word), the overemphasis on dialogue (as subtitles for me … a non German/Italian speaker) caused me to miss other bits.
Not bad - better than I first thought (and ‘Goldtooth’ did say “one after another” amongst all the other verbiage) … OAA - still the better film.
You seen this one Chris?